An Examination of Consumer–Company Identification as a Key Predictor of Consumer Responses in Corporate Crisis

Abstract

Through an experiment, this study examined how varying degrees of consumer–company identification, crisis severity and different crisis response messages (i.e., two‐sided vs. one‐sided) affected consumers’ responses to corporate crisis and the crisis‐affected company. Results suggested that two‐sided response messages were more effective in reducing the attribution of crisis responsibility than one‐sided positive response messages for weak identifiers, while one‐sided positive response messages were more effective than two‐sided response messages for strong identifiers. But this message effect was only found in low but not high severity crisis. Findings of the study indicated that consumer–company identification may serve as one of the key factors in predicting consumer reactions to crisis.

An Examination of Antecedents to Perceived Community Resilience in Disaster Postcrisis Communication

“…The stronger publics identify with their community, the more likely they will engage in social media communication that will benefit others. Consistent with previous literature (Zhang & Kim, 2017), strong identification with an organization can turn into strengthened support for the organization in times of crisis. Accordingly, when crises threaten both social group identity as well as an individual's identity, people are motivated to act.…”

Linguistic Crisis Prediction: An Integration of the Linguistic Category Model in Crisis Communication

“…As locus moved inward in preventable conditions, effects of ego-protective bias toward the in-group organization, that is, “ultimate attribution error” disappeared. These findings are consistent with past research (Zhang & Kim, 2017) that uncovered a boundary condition around perceived severity. While shared identification did function to offset blame from the public to a crisis-afflicted corporation, this effect broke as the severity of the crisis intensified.…”

“…The findings here suggest that perceived locus and stability may constitute similar breaking points. In corporate crisis contexts, this tendency toward in-group protective attribution biases may break under the strain of a severe transgression (Zhang & Kim, 2017). Preventable crises may constitute a boundary condition for the ego-protective motivations of ultimate attribution error, causing intergroup attribution biases to vanish within the preventable conditions.…”

“…As individuals’ self-concepts are closely connected with the group identity with which they identify with (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), individuals tend to minimize blame by externalizing attribution in cases of wrong by in-group peers but not by out-group members (Borden, 2016; Zhang & Kim, 2017). In framing research, for example, media coverage of mass shootings frequently varies depending on the race of the shooter, with White perpetrators often described as “mentally ill” (uncontrollable, thus low attribution) but non-White shooters treated as violent criminals or terrorists (controllable thus high attribution; Duxbury, Frizzell, & Lindsay, 2018; Metzl & MacLeish, 2015).…”

“…It is plausible that such effects could further manifest during times of corporate crisis based on the nationality of crisis-affected organizations (Borden, 2016). Conversely, while exploring similar scenarios, Zhang and Kim (2017) uncovered boundary conditions on the protective effects of shared identity between consumers and organizations in crisis. Studying the impact of crisis severity on consumer attitudes toward the organization, it was found that the bias-motivating shared identification with the organization broke under conditions of high severity.…”